Ever lost your ticket!!!

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At the Match against everton i got to the turnstile to find ticket stub number 16 missing , I guess my dad handed in two for the arsenal game when he had my ticket. Of course the jobsworths wouldnt let me in , so in stead I had to queue for 20MINS at the ticket windows, just to be told i had to pay 30QUID, to sit IN MY OWN SEAT... After VERY loud conversations going something like , "LOOK ITS MY TICKET THATS MY NAME , JUST CHECK MY SEAT NOONE IS IN IT , AND IF ID SOLD IT ID HAVE TO SIT ON SOMEONES KNEE WOULDNT I" The police showed, being fair the plod agreed that the policy of NUFC was shabby but there was nowt they could do . Even though they asked why couldnt a security officer radio up to check the seat and were greeted with company policy.
I am obviously very angry about this as the bloody seat isnt even worth 30quid, and the woman behind the desk said if i could find my no16 ticket id be refunded "WELL IF I HAD THE FU****N THING ID BE IN MY SEAT NOT STANDING HERE WOULDNT I "< br> To add insult to injury i paid my 30quid and went to the turnstile only to find it unmanned and i walked straight in with my unchecked emergency ticket. Im going to write to the club BUT to whom should i address this letter to get most effect????

-- Anonymous, April 04, 2002

Answers

Angry Patron

-- Anonymous, April 04, 2002

Sir John Hall

I had bother with an away ticket at Spurs, when Suzie B got a replacement for me and Min when the originals were lost in the post. Of course, Spurs double issued tickets for the same seat, and replacements are considered 2nd class. But, to their credit, the cock-the-knee Pearly Kings got us in elsewhere...where we watched us get stuffed.

-- Anonymous, April 04, 2002


Wasn't it you who had this problem once before Kenny? Maybe that was a forgotten ticket whereas this one is lost.

You can see the club is in a slightly difficult position - who's to say the person who claims their ticket is lost/forgotten hasn't sold it to a tout or some such thing? (I realise you didn't too that obviously) I would hope you may get a positive reponse with a polite letter clearly explaining the circs. Best not to lose your temper with such things as you want the people at the other end to be on your side - getting their backs up won't help I suspect. Ultimately, you're on a sticky wicket with no proof at all your ticket was not used by someone else, but as a long term season ticket holder etc etc, maybe someone in more authority than the low paid jobsworths who are not allowed to use any initiative, will be able to help. Hope you can get some redress on this.



-- Anonymous, April 04, 2002

One of kids removed one of my tickets (I know because I found it much later under the drawers in their room) but I still had the smaller stub for the ticket. I turned up at the ticket office (although I had already rang to ask about a replacement) and was given a replacement after showing my season ticket without charge.

That was only a couple of seasons ago. I had to queue and I think I missed the first five minutes of the game but I definitely didn't pay anything extra to get in.

-- Anonymous, April 04, 2002


About 5 home matches ago my mate forgot his SEASON TICKET, never mind the ticket. Anyway, he went to the box office and queued. They said you need to sign this etc and give me £30. He hadn't brought £30 so they checked his seat on the tv cameras and let him in. He was next to me at 3.05

Not bad really.

-- Anonymous, April 04, 2002



JOnno...You can see the club is in a slightly difficult position - who's to say the person who claims their ticket is lost/forgotten hasn't sold it to a tout or some such thing?

Not a problem seeing as someone will get chucked if in my seat BUT If theres no-one in my seat I cant see how charging me 30quid will make any difference except the greedy gits get more cash , and effectivly have sold my ticket TWICE

-- Anonymous, April 04, 2002


The Box (Ticket) Office manager is a lovely lady called Lynn Birmingham. She's the one to write to, or email on Lynn.Birmingham@nufc.co.uk she will reply.

I believe, as Jonno has suggested they have a couple of reasons for charging, one to put off the casual trying it on, one to cover admin, clearly some of the staff take a more sensible view, and you missed out on getting those ones :0)

-- Anonymous, April 04, 2002


to cover Admin as it took 20 seconds to write the ticket and get my cash then they must be on £5400 per hour Nice job if u can get it..

-- Anonymous, April 04, 2002

A couple of seasons ago I bought a ticket at the box office and went and sat in the seat at the match. Alot of people around me were tutting saying that seat belonged to a ST holder. I ignored them, after all I had a ticket with that number on. Then the ST holder turned up and got quite stroppy so I moved to avoid aggro and went to see the stewards and explained the situation. They checked the seat and I stood for the first half until they found me a (crap) seat at half time. I wrote the club a stinking letter and they apologised and said it was a printing error and gave me a free ticket for the next game. Apparently they will refund you if you can produce the ticket that you lost. Definitely needs sorting out - macbeth?

-- Anonymous, April 04, 2002

A similar problem happened last season to someone on here, but I can't recall who it was. I wrote to Russell Cushing about it at the time, and he explained the problems this sort of thing causes for them, but agreed the system needed to be looked at.

Clearly, it still does!

-- Anonymous, April 04, 2002



Steph thats it the ticket was handed in a week early so I cant produce it , I can howver show the stub for what thats worth . Ive sent an email to the club so lets wait and see the reply.

Ill let u all know the outcome

-- Anonymous, April 04, 2002


IAN.. lynne birminghams address is incorrect can u check and give me it again .. cheers

Ken

-- Anonymous, April 04, 2002


The club claim they check through all the tickets to see if any have been handed in by mistake.

-- Anonymous, April 04, 2002

One of my mates pinched a voucher from the back of another mates ST. He passed it on at the turnstile and dived in, the bloke manning the gate shouted to stop but by that time he was well mixed into the crowd. You never know a lot of this may go on and the club might be clamping down. Anyway I'd be as mad as Kennyboy if I had to jump through hoops like that.

-- Anonymous, April 04, 2002

To be fair though, it is quite a hard thing to get right for the club. Anyone could hand in their stub but leave the rest of their ticket with a mate who could then say they've lost the stub.

I think a credit card type system (which would obviously take a while to put in and set up) could work, where people need their season ticket card to get in. It gets scanned in and their name is crossed off the computer's list. This isn't a short term thing though.

-- Anonymous, April 04, 2002



Last year I noticed a new ticket scanning technology being used at some of the arenas over here. The ticket takers scan, rather than tear or take, bar codes on the tickets and it somehow gets fed into a central system that is supposed to give them some kind of warning if the ticket is a fake or duplicate. Of course, it's also a much easier and faster way to count stubs, too. I really don't know any more details, but it does sound like the wave of the future. It certainly made getting into venues much faster.

-- Anonymous, April 04, 2002

It's an idea that we would have probably be using now if we'd bulit the new stadium

However, the cost of changing over would be bloody huge, probably two weeks wages for Dyer at the least.

-- Anonymous, April 04, 2002


It seems noone understands , we have a sell out EVERY GAME , my ticket entiltes me to sit in ONE seat , if I sold it then got in (as I did after paying 30quid) Then two people would be sitting in 1 seat . OR 1 person would be wandering around for 90mins.

If the club cant see this then theyre thicker than i thought.

BTW Im still waiting for a response from them..

-- Anonymous, April 05, 2002


Try Lynn without an "e"

Don't wish to seem hard on this but it is you that lost the ticket. If I'd forgotten my train ticket I'd not be allowed on the train.

-- Anonymous, April 05, 2002


Cheers mate it was lyn ..

I received a telphone call at work on fri explaining the reasoning about the 30quid charge. Apparantly because of the costs of printing the tickets no seat numbers are printed on the tickets , so anyone can sell their ticket and the receipent can find an empty seat anywhere. I cant beleive nufc cant print seat numbers on the tickets as they have a unique number on them already the costs would be minimal all they have to do is run them through a vps system on a xerox. Anyway the nice lady , margerat was her name recredited my card. So there are SOME nice peeps work at NUFC , cheers again maggie - very apt name an all......

-- Anonymous, April 22, 2002


Thanks for the update there Kennyboy and good to know the matter was sorted. I just got my cheque through for a ticket I forgot recently. Refunded the whole £30. I thought they refunded £25 thus taking £5 admin.

Very commendable - what a marvellous club to support.



-- Anonymous, April 22, 2002

Good to hear Jonno I also received the full 30quid, it was quite a turn up as id given up all hope of seeing it.

-- Anonymous, April 22, 2002

It really doesn't take much, does it? Customer service - one of THE most important things for any business.

A p*ssed off customer will tell of his bad experiences to something like 30 people: a delighted customer will do likewise. It really doesn't take too many -ve or +ve experiences to produce a significant move in customer perception.

Well done NUFC - on this occasion.

-- Anonymous, April 22, 2002


Having met Lynn Birmingham and seen her passion (!) for having a well run ticket office I was upset that the actions didn't seem to match her words, obviously she is getting her message across but it's hard work !

-- Anonymous, April 22, 2002

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